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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27410824">Retribution (I'll Take My Payment In Blood)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrytteMystere/pseuds/BrytteMystere'>BrytteMystere</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Fae!Claire AU [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fae!Claire Beauchamp, Gen, Hades the game inspired me to FINALLY finish writing this chapter wow, Loosely based on episode 8 of the first season, Reality Warping involved 'cause Fae shenanigans, The violence is more implied than explicit but just in case</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:22:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27410824</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrytteMystere/pseuds/BrytteMystere</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan Wolverton Randall learns his men have captured a certain Engliswoman for him. He doesn't quite know who he will end up meeting.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Claire Beauchamp/Frank Randall, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Fae!Claire AU [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646914</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Retribution (I'll Take My Payment In Blood)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have to keep rereading my own works to watch out for contradictions, since my inspiration comes and goes and drinks from where it will. This chapter of the series has been running through my head so often I could never fully feel satisfied by it. I fear my mind keeps wanting to pour these story threads in too many directions, and the idea of Claire's confrontation (final, at that) with BJR may not end up as well as I intended it to, tormented me. May this Hades (the game) inspired part satisfy…</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her touch was a blessing, the careful pass of the wet cloth on his face akin to a sacrament he had been desperately longing for without even realizing.</p><p>Truly she had shaped his world in endless ways, and this… this, more than anything, was the primary one. This closeness, this care…</p><p>When had he ever been so loved? So cared for?</p><p>They were on their knees, then. Her eyes, a magnificent molten golden that took away his breath, were focused on him, her every action careful and delicate.</p><p>"I willna break, Sorcha."</p><p>Her lips curled up just the tiniest bit on their edges, and this already felt like a triumph.</p><p>In the lull of her soaking up the blood drenched cloth back into the warm water, he took up the remaining clean one and did his part, watching with baited awe as her pearl-white skin was freed to his sight beneath the crusted remains of coagulated blood.</p><hr/><p>His mind was a minefield, Claire had learned this in their previous meeting, and had no intention of repeating it ever again. Her every part shivered at the thought of being subsumed by his sadistic desires again, so it would not do. No.</p><p>She had time, till Fort William. She had time, before facing the mocking resemblance of her first husband, her beloved Frank. Claire would face Jonathan Wolverton Randall, and… ensure her husband's family would never bring shame upon him again.</p><p>It didn't even bother her, being tied up. She had her trusty hairpin, the long, sharp one Murtagh had been able to get for her on the sly, and was ready to use it. After all, she was well aware that one of them would not leave the encounter intact.</p><p>So what if it hurt, every meter of distance between Jamie and her? She would make it. Endure it… somehow.</p><hr/><p>Henry knew it was unfair of him.</p><p>To watch her, so undone as she was, so unstable, barely put together into a semblance of humanity by the small public ceremony that had allowed her to proclaim that human faeling of hers as her own to everyone. Yet his fascination held and he couldn't help it.</p><p>He had seen her break, had seen her first husband do his best to keep her together, had seen her second do a much better job of it all and… waited.</p><p>His daughter, precious rarity that she was, being not only a halfling but one with a rather strong <em> spark </em> had somehow managed to survive a World War, travel through the stones, and several emotional ordeals without dying even once.</p><p>So even as he saw her, being moved towards the human beast who longed to harm her, in the dark waves of the ink, he pondered, waited.</p><p>
  <em> "Will you die at last, my dear? Will you find your peace in renewal? And will you kill him, before he kills you?" </em>
</p><p>There was life in death, and death in life. Every member of the Winter court had been properly initiated, allowed a dignified first time, that settled their high spirits and allowed them to form their connection to the land.</p><p>Yet his daughter… continued to evade it. So he would watch, and he would be ready. At no point had he expected his child to be so utterly entertaining, but she kept surprising him.</p><p>
  <em> "Give him hell, child…"</em>
</p><hr/><p>Pain settled in her as the distance grew, the faint echo of Jamie's sudden distress enough for her to realize he must have discovered her abduction.</p><p>She sent soothing nothings his way, yet could hardly disguise how his efforts to bring her back together had started to unravel the moment he was away.</p><p>Well, she had tried to tell Willie. They had been too close to those thrice damned stones, and nothing good could come from it.</p><p>Not-Claire gave it no mind.</p><p>She was like a seething beast, clawing at her from within, salivating at the very thought of getting her revenge on the one who had so humiliated them before.</p><p>Before, Claire would have cried. She would have tried to think of something clever, something that could get her out of seeing who had ordered her capture.</p><p>Now, she longed for it. Her skin paled by the minute, and her eyes grew even more golden. She recalled it, the thoughts she had had before, felt her teeth ache as they sharpened.</p><p>It was bound to get bloody.</p><hr/><p>She had been left in his office, free to examine his belongings and quietly laugh at his ridiculous wigs.</p><p>All, truly, in a failed attempt to quiet the song of her husband's blood, the ghostly remains of him in the very room she was now in.</p><p>She rose, and sat, in the chair she instinctively knew had been his own.</p><p>Felt in her own flesh the echo of his misery then, his disgust, at himself and at the man who had offered to bugger him. That he had considered it, but for a moment. A brief second that made her growl before she rose again, wandering around the room, hair down and free to curl around her face, tickling her neck before she sat where that horrid beast usually did, feeling the whole cold extent of her hairpin between her breasts.</p><p>He entered, hesitating immediately as the door closed behind him, upon seeing her seated where he usually did.</p><p>Claire felt Not-Claire purring at his face, the thinly veiled indignation at her commanding his place, at her being left there, alone, free to touch his things, to move them as she wished, and mock him through it all.</p><p>She, dual as she was at that precise moment, was allowed to speak, and move, knowing that the moment had come.</p><p>Her fingers slightly moved the wig stand, eyes rising to meet her prey - and oh, did he think himself the predator still? - till its faceless surface was in eyesight.</p><p>"You know, I've never understood the powdered wig. Is it supposed to confer an aura of wisdom on its host or is it purely aesthetic?"</p><p>She had rattled him, if briefly. She knew it by the expression on his face, that face she knew so dearly yet held now all manner of ticks she was unfamiliar with. Its very expression changed, by the one who wore it.</p><p>Her eyes remained on him, as he took off his hat and set it on its place, even as she continued.</p><p>"On either event, it fails miserably, but signifying a weak mind, bowing to contemporary fashion."</p><p>He was approaching her, yet her emotions had settled. She knew, as the beast within her knew, what would happen, in this very room wherein the man had exerted his power for years. It felt deliciously unholy, to be here in his domain, ready to tear him to shreds.</p><p>She was justified, after all. He had breached all hospitality with her first, when she could have elevated him beyond his every thought had he not revealed his brutish, sadistic nature so candidly.</p><p>He was now right in front of her, the table separating them, as another once had, not so long ago.</p><p>"Displaying the decidedly unbecoming sight of white girlish curls atop a grown man's head."</p><p>His narrowed eyes, his narrowed lips. The way his hands were held together in front of him… he was angry.</p><p>Oh, furious, even. Had he ever been mocked so? Was that which had so attracted him towards her Jamie? How utterly unrepentant he'd been to insult him to his face? Was that what drove him?</p><p>She could have pondered it further, but Not-Claire was not in the mood to overly entertain analysis on their prey. No. Claire's time was running out, so she appreciated this instant she had, knowing soon enough nothing of him would be left but a cooling corpse.</p><p>"Really, why would any <em> red blooded man </em> wear such a ridiculous thing?"</p><p>He would react. She knew this, yet didn't mind. She felt the monster within take hold, felt her golden eyes brighten, and was happy enough to recede.</p><p>
  <em> 'You won't break me. I will. Break. You.'</em>
</p><p>"Conformity," a human monster said to an inhuman one. "Acceptance of the social order. A signal that says <em> yes, I am of this class, I know the protocols</em>. I accept the rules."</p><p>The Lady of Winter watched him, through still mostly human eyes, mockingly.</p><p>He didn't. Oh, he didn't.</p><p>Were he knowledgeable of the <em> protocols </em> as he implied, he would never have tried to assault her sister in law. He would never have harmed her husband for preventing the aggression. He would never have dared to raise a hand against <em> her </em> on any occasion.</p><p>No, he didn't know the protocols.</p><p>How far beneath her was he, lowly, sick human that he was? And yet even now he approached her, no bow nor politeness in sight, clear intent hardly hidden behind those dark eyes of his?</p><p>Oh, he liked to pretend at gentlemanly manners. He pretended quite well, on occasion. But she had seen through him already.</p><p>"Oh," she replied, amused. Her voice held a tonality rather different than before, an undertone no human could discern properly yet felt deeply, drawing him forth, further into his demise. "You aren't a man bound by society's rules."</p><p>
  <em> 'Come forth. Come die. It is time to pay your debts…' </em>
</p><p>"We are all bound by society's rules, <em> madam. </em> And, if you looked inside my cabinet, then you know this is but one of three."</p><p>A smile curled her lips, his every expression amusing her. She was freer than she had ever been, yet he kept trying to intimidate her. It was good enough for her to let him, granting him this one last moment of cockiness, even as her influence extended, took hold of every inch of the room, and made it <em> hers. </em></p><p>Time stopped for them, in that room, yet she doubted he would notice. Not yet.</p><p>No sound would be heard outside, as she held the fabric of reality in this space, and carefully cut it out. Moved it, distasteful wigs and all, to one of the darkest, foggiest spaces within the facility she so well knew.</p><p>The fly had entered the trap willingly. Had closed the door behind him, in fact. So what if he didn't know what doing so doomed him to?</p><p>She was owed a corpse. She was owed retaliation. And she would have it.</p><p>So she let him pick his wig, on its stand, and walk behind her to place it where it had been, without nary a bother.</p><p>"I have neglected to offer you my felicitations and congratulations on your recent marriage."</p><p>"I'm <em> sure </em> my husband's family would be most obliged to you for you… <em> hospitality." </em></p><p>"About that… which particular MacKenzie toad did Dougal force you to marry?"</p><p>He still didn't know who her husband was, truly. And she still felt the tinge of rage, already building and rising to a boil beneath her skin, sparkle.</p><p>Had his sights been set on the window behind her, why, she was certain he would have noted the undue darkening of the not-sky, and had his eyes focused on those wigs of his, he would have noted rot blooming in them.</p><p>As it was, his attention was set on the jug of wine and the two cups he was holding, pausing only briefly at her response.</p><p>"You think I was forced?"</p><p><em> 'That I </em> <b> <em>could</em> </b> <em> be? Oh, you witless fool…' </em></p><p>"I find it very hard to believe that an English Lady of your station, of your eh… your <em> beauty </em> would willingly choose to marry some toothless barbarian that probably bathes no more than twice a year."</p><p>He had been drawn to her side on his own volition, setting wine on his desk as if they were in fact friendly acquaintances meeting for a drink.</p><p>She let a moment pass, eyes set on him, analyzing what parts she would tear into first, and decided his mind worked well enough, given his ransaking of her own in their last meeting.</p><p>"How often do <em> you </em> bathe, Captain?"</p><p>He seemed to shrug it off, however, and as his attention was back on her, she reached out, and carefully separating her emotions from his, sank silent hooks onto his every limb.</p><p>"On this country? Not nearly often enough, Mrs. Beauchamp."</p><p>He was pouring the wine, as she smiled like a cat and corrected him.</p><p>"Mrs. <em> Fraser, </em> Captain. I am now Mrs. James Alexander Malcom MacKenzie Fraser."</p><p>His hold of the glass wavered, his surprise obvious in every feature, in every sudden movement of his body.</p><p>Her words had struck him deep, as she had well intended them to, and he half-sat into his desk as his disbelieving gaze took her in.</p><p>She saw him, taking in the iron ring she wore in her right hand, the silver, magnificently carved ring she wore in her left. Her golden ring, Frank's ring, remained within Jamie's sporran.</p><p>Tired of playing, she held his body still, and rose. Taking the jug of wine and the glass from his hands, least her hold on him trembled and they ended on the floor.</p><p>She stood before him, freed wholly from the thin veneer of humanity that had clung to her. It was as if it were burning off of her, as her hair curled further and yet grew longer, as her skin paled and her eyes brightened.</p><p>"I'm afraid I've tired of games, Johnny boy. It is <em> my </em> turn to play now."</p><p>And with these words, she took his face between her hands, and sunk her fingers into his temples.</p><hr/><p>The bride has forget-me-nots woven into her hair, the very picture of what Persephone could be in the flesh, all smooth pearly skin, holding within just enough blush of youthful vitality to thoroughly destroy any attempt at resisting her.</p><p>Not that he was <em> planning to, </em>that would be absurd.</p><p>Does he not love her with all his being? Is she not the one star he orbits? All she has to do is want it, and he would do anything, <em> anything </em> for her.</p><p>As if hearing his mildly delirious thoughts, those rose-red lips of hers part just enough for her melodic laughter to reach his ears, and he-</p><p><em> wants to bite those lips till they bleed, hold that impolute neck of hers and </em> <b> <em>tighten his hands around it</em> </b> <em> till her laughter is gone and all she can do is gasp as her pearly skin turns a pale purple-blue- </em></p><p>would do anything to keep her happy, laughing within the nature she fits so perfectly in, longing to paint her features in canvas after canvas, with every hue at hand, if only so her magnificence would remain immortalized…</p><p><em> He had sketched her likeness on a napkin, </em> <b> <em>beautiful lies, </em> </b> <em> and her soft skin had given way easily to his fist even through the numbing effect of her stays, and those rose-red lips had gasped so beautifully- </em></p><p>He loved her. How could he not? He had loved her from the very moment his eyes had fallen upon her, young and vibrant and <em> endlessly moving, </em>a force of nature into herself that he could only admire from afar, certain that she would never settle for him, even if her eyes lingered and reached deep, stealing his heart…</p><p><em> Golden eyes like he had never seen in his life, flashing to life as the lie she had wrapped herself in vanished, that perfectly untouched skin of hers </em> <b> <em>dripping</em> </b> <em> in blood and he wanted to mark her, to ruin her, because even then he felt the pull that broke his reason and his senses, he had to have her and- </em></p><p>She chose him. She chose <em> him, </em> when the world itself would have fallen to her feet for a glance. She chose him, and he took her to Scotland, for she had always been so patient with his endless fascination with the Risings, he just had to show her the sheer beauty of the country she had so briefly visited before.</p><p>He was to marry her in the Highlands, in an old church that remained dignified and beautiful in its age, a temple with an almost palpable aura he just knew she would love, and she would be there, dressed in white, with the flowers he had courted her with, her favourites, woven into her hair, and everything would be-</p><p><em> just perfect as he tore her dress and let his eyes feast on the perfectly impollute canvas that was </em> <b> <em>her</em> </b> <em> and oh, how a newly remarried widow could still look so delightfully untouched made him wonder what it would take to leave a mark in her, because he wanted, wanted so badly, this woman who had escaped him twice already to go and marry the Scotsman who had also evaded his need… he would have her now, yes, ruin her so her precious husband could never again lie with her without feeling him there as well, forever deep into the soft warmth of her- </em></p><p>Oh, she was going to drive him mad. He could kiss her skin and endeavour to leave endless hickeys, but they would heal before his very eyes, till all he could do was drown, drown, drown in her and wish to have her forever remain within him…</p><p>
  <em> he could even go farther, ponder, as his hands tightened on her waist, if her Scotsman had already left something in her womb, and oh, wouldn't it be a truly delightful twist if he did so instead? Leave a gift neither could forget? </em>
</p><p>"That is enough, Jonathan."</p><p>The flashes stopped, this link to someone he recognised in a mirror and yet not, the perfect bride he was to ravage vanishing like a mirage from his arms.</p><p>There was a coldness against his back, from head to ankle, he couldn't give any reason for, till he managed to glance at his person and found himself naked, tied to a metal table.</p><p>The steps by his right brought his head - as little as he could move it - towards the figure in white that approached.</p><p>He recognized her, of course, for she looked just as she had that day by the stream, before the glamour had lifted, a Lady dressed in white, now without any hint of confusion or distress, mere cool calculation.</p><p>Jonathan Randall - for that is the man in the autopsy table - would have moved to attack her in an instant, verbally if not able to do so physically, but his lips had been sewn together, and he could tell his tongue was no more.</p><p>The girl - for she looked far younger than her years, right then, in the white dress with her long, long hair braided to the side, reaching her waist, her clothes fitting perfectly yet giving the impression of diminishing her figure in its endless folds - had needle and thread still at hand, golden eyes examining him as if he was little more than a bug for her to torment at will.</p><p>Now, it had been long - far too long - since the last time he found himself in the position of the helpless victim, and being forced back into it by this woman was particularly humiliating.</p><p>It brought to mind her expression, as she slipped from his hold and seemed to retreat to some unknown distance he hadn't been able to breach, even through the type of appeal who had always moved bleeding hearts like hers to far deeper extremes of pity.</p><p>He had already planned to hurt her - she had escaped him, only to appear out of nowhere in the very same table of the utter fool he was forced to call general, looking unruffled and unaffected, as if their last interaction hadn't involved her messing with his very perception of reality without the minor retribution of allowing him to have his fill of her.</p><p>Wench. Stubborn, resilient bitch.</p><p>He had sworn to break her, mayhaps even grant her a matching work of art to the boy she had seemed to care so much about. Especially when news of her wedding reached him, and he spent a whole restless night, moving between cells and prisoners as he pictured her, writhing in bed, clinging to whatever fool she had been given to, and… envied.</p><p>"I have tried, Jonathan. I've tried many times, many things. But no matter what I do, your rot keeps coming up. I cannot bear it."</p><p>That blank face of hers at last showed the slightest hint of emotion, an irritated moue of her lips her only concession to her so-called exasperation.</p><p>Frankly, it looked more like a girl pantomiming anger than the actual thing, so removed from the feeling all that came through was a washed out parody of it.</p><p>"I cannot have you wearing his face, and being… well, <em> you." </em></p><p>The situation was altogether too fantastical for him to think himself in anything but a dream - and oh, he would duly redouble his efforts to hunt her down once-</p><p>"I said <em> stop that, </em>you bloody moron!"</p><p><em> There </em> she was. He still could not feel most of his body beyond the sense of coldness, but he recognized that foul mouth. She had cursed him just as easily before, golden eyes sharp on his as the full weight of her judgement fell like something he could happily engrave into her skin.</p><p>And pain-</p><p>It was so sudden he didn't have a moment to collect himself, as numbness gave abrupt way to the absolute worst misery he had felt in his whole life, up to and including every time he had been breached without preparation when his body was nowhere near ready to handle it.</p><p>No. No, he realized then that she hadn't stopped at his tongue, or at sewing his lips.</p><p>His brief glance downwards, little as he had been able to move, had let him see his hairy ankles lying still on the metal, yet now he realized what before he couldn't.</p><p>The skin beneath his neck, all the way to his knees, had been…</p><p>As if in answer to his musings, she put her scalpel down, and carefully lifted a pile of still-bloody yet carefully collected skin into his view.</p><p>"I shall have this treated and send Alex letters with it. Don't you think it sounds perfect? He'll have you by his side without even realizing!"</p><p>He, to his utter shame, fainted.</p><hr/><p>Everything was silent, and the muteness of her emotions had given rise to his own anxiety the longer it went on.</p><p>He was even then, hanging onto a rope and descending into the room, wary yet telling himself it would not matter what he found, he would gather his wife and get her far, far away from the place.</p><p>So, as a faint gargle reached his ears, he felt more than justified to burst into the room to find… nothing.</p><p>The room was empty as could be, no sign of his wife, or the bastard. All he had was an empty pistol, the room everyone had seen them both enter and not come back from and… <em> nothing but wine and glass shards on the floor.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am awful, hate me.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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